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Looking Back, Moving Forward... On the Occasion of our 500th Issue When I first started publishing the Review back in April of 1979, I had no idea that 22 years later I'd be writing these words for the 500th edition. Having dropped out of law school after my second year, and being laid off by WHNN, where I was working as a copywriter, did not make the launching of a monthly publication devoted to divergent perspectives a necessarily lucrative idea. But it did offer two qualities that I have come to regard as invaluable in this or any other lifetime; namely, promise and potential. In 1979 the Iran/Contra scandal was in the later days of pregnancy, only a mere four years after Watergate, and the only things that people cared about were Grease, the fact that they had to wait in long lines for gas, and that under Jimmy Carter, inflation was hitting a higher note than Barbara Streisand & her combined budget for A Star Is Born. For me, I wanted to go into environmental law. But when I learned one day in class of a certain procedural requirement that would prohibit most claims clients might have from receiving 'standing' to even be heard in court, it was apparent that there had to be a 'better way'. I decided that people should 'know' about these things, and it was obvious they were not being told the story in the local dailies. There had to be a way to inspire, educate, inform, and entertain people of the tri-cities about the promise & potential in their own lives by exposing them to the benefits of my own; but more importantly, the remarkable talents of one another - the unique personal stories of so many gifted people that were not being told. And so it was with $500.00 and a rudimentary office in the basement of my parent's home that the Bay Area Review was born. It took a long time and a lot of sacrifice to 'grow' the publication. It took three years and two partners before I even got the operation out of that basement. The first time my accountant showed me black ink, it was immediately invested into a $30,000 Compugraphic typesetting machine. And so it was another five years before my income ever reached the point of being regarded as even barely respectable. But it didn't matter, because we had promise and potential. Unlike today's age of 'instant publishing' and the Internet, owning a newspaper back then was like owning a small manufacturing company. What three people can accomplish today, it took ten to produce a single issue. But we were on a mission and we were succeeding. The end of the 1980s marked our 10th year of publishing and the Review survived, in large part, because we provided an antidote to the recession that was eating the Tri-Cities alive in the Reagan & Bush years - largely fueled by massive tax cuts and huge increases in defense spending engineered by Reagan's whimsical 'whiz-kid' David Stockman. Ironic, given the current moves in Washington, how many things change and yet have a tendency to stay the same. But today, as back then, we told the national stories that weren't being told, and we wrote about the local issues shaping our future. Unlike the soundbites offered in the major media, we wrote lengthy detailed pieces about why the Midland Nuclear Power plant was a bad idea and a taxpayer funded scam. We wrote about why people should be concerned not only about toxic trains but the waste in government and the deceits perpetrated by so-called 'leaders'. We wrote about artists, politicians, and personalities local & national, known & unknown, musicians on the cutting edge, and miraculously, our success came in many forms. First, by providing an avenue of communication & information bridging the tri-cities, we were the only 'homegrown' news outlet not owned by a national chain. And an important lesson I learned back then is that the only reason independence is an invaluable commodity is precisely because it does not carry a pricetag. To my knowledge, the Review is the longest running independently owned 'alternative' news publication in the State of Michigan next to the Ann Arbor Observer. We started two years before the Detroit Metro Times. We started around the same time Michael Moore began his Flint and then Michigan Voice, and I recall as if it were yesterday being criticized by denizens of the 'radical chic' crowd that we couldn't be a 'true' alternative newspaper because we did profiles on new and innovative local businesses. Of course, we were paying our typesetters back then, rather than recruiting them for free; and the 'Church of Mike' soon folded when, as we all know, Mike decided to become a documentary filmmaker and a contemporary apologist for Ralph Nader. I'm much happier still doing what I do, and frankly could not bare the thought of rationalizing and attempting to absolve myself of responsibility for helping land G.W. Bush in office. Integrity is something that is earned and never procured, and through the commitment of four generations of staff members, the Review has succeeded in large part because it has never lost sight of that promise and potential for the future - not only for our local community, but for the fate of our region & the direction of our future. Through much of the '80s, our Singles Only column was a unique way to meet new people - in fact; it was the only such feature of its kind around. It touches me at the number of letters I've received over the years from couples that have met their life's destiny through this column. As the '80s paved into the '90s, countless other publications adopted this feature - but when others imitate, our motto iss to innovate. And so we move onŠpresses against the current, being born ceaselessly into the future as well as the past (to paraphrase F. Scott Fitzgerald). Personally, I could not have asked for a more enriched life. The opportunity to interview local movers & shakers has afforded me a profound respect towards those individuals that truly care enough to make things happen within our community, and to have interviewed, profiled, and met people such as the late Pat Paulsen and Abbie Hoffman, along with contemporary dynamos like Norman Mailer, Jeff Beck, and P.J. O'Rourke is to experience the privilege of communicating with the type of minds that make our society. People often ask me if it gets easier. They ask if I see myself doing this in 20 more years. And the answer I give them is 'No', it doesn't get easier. Nothing in life that carries any value ever does. New challenges and new obstacles always await, and it is only when we take things for 'granted' that we are truly lost. But it is still the people involved with this operation that inspire me. Those like my loving & unselfish wife Michele, who puts her best face forward, while tending to the daily peripheral details that glue the operation together. Those like Kay McEntee that find freedom through unselfishly sharing their vision. Those like Steven Gotts whom inspires by his transcendence of physical challenge. And finally, each & every staff member that through the years shared their own promise & potential. Do I see myself doing this in 20 years? I've been burning on an all-weekend deadline, and it's difficult to think clearly at this point. Unfortunately, I do not have a crystal ball. And I would be totally remiss if I did not mention the contribution of the late Terry Searfoss, whose spirit is still with me and who taught me another invaluable lesson that true accomplishment in life is gauged by the lives that we touch. God willing, we'll all be around (in one form or another) to inspire, infuriate, educate, illuminate, and impact your lives for many years to come. Robert E. Martin Editor & Publisher Review Magazine
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